The American baritone Lawrence Tibbett began his career as an actor and in light opera. He became the Metropolitan's leading baritone and later sang widely throughout Europe.
He was The Met's first Balstrode in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes and sang in the premières of many other operas. He had an actor's superb diction allied to a firmly focussed, smoothly produced voice of considerable power and yet a beautiful pianissimo. As with Ezio Pinza, his stage career ended on Broadway. His last rôle was in the musical Fanny.
Tibbett was born in Bakersfield, California in 1896. He died in 1960 in New York.
